Past and Present
by Happy1K1nob1
Summary: Taylor has been alone, been trusted, been praised. Taylor has seen Winslow, seen Endbringers, seen gods. Taylor is ready for a change, for Lizzy to get off her lazy ass, for a little cash to get her dog a treat. Taylor is confused: why would a little girl in Brockton Bay, who isn't a Tinker, remember killing Endbringers and be able to swordfight with the best?
1. Prologue

In a universe nearby, a dimensional ball of energy interacted with the world to crack it just enough to allow a young woman magic on a scale yet before unseen. This allowed others magic, and the world began to wake up.

But this crack was not only felt in that world.

It was also felt elsewhere.

Very close by, in another Earth Bet, a young woman was afflicted by a very similar crack, this one an extension of the earlier break, and began to scream.

Unlike others similar to her, she never got a "Trigger". Instead, the magical energy flowing along this crack affected her down to the very core, sending bits and pieces of her soul in ways they were not meant to travel, and bleedover from another universe made for a very interesting feel to the magic that suffused the young woman's soul.

In one universe, that allowed her the use of enough magic to rend the world assunder.

In this one, it allowed her to see what has happened in the past and affect it with knowledge from the present day, rather similar to a certain bard, one half kami and half dragon.

Thus, her screams, caused by pain she would experience, or rather send to her past self, in the near future.

This would seal the fate of her world, and in the process, save it from utter anihilation.

But who would be so kind? Certainly not this world.

* * *

Taylor's eyes snapped open, breaths coming out heavy and panicked. Dammit! This was not the time to be reliving this nightmare!

She tossed aside her covers and dashed to the closet, placing her military uniform on over her nightclothes, and her lab coat on over that. She would need the armor incorporated into the first and the devices woven into the second. The weapons were just in case of personal trouble, and a familiarly comforting weight, an accord to the military who were humoring her, and an option in violence, which allowed her to be lethal should she choose, as well as simply disarming, on command.

She ran out of the apartment building and ignored the marvels of scenery she'd once chosen it for as she closed in on her hovercar. A golden being not unlike Scion of Earth Bet was approaching, and they needed all hands on deck to repel him, maintain the shields and man the guns, no matter how futile the gesture.

Speeding along furiously in ways that fighter jets of the late twentieth century would be endlessly jealous of, she broke several local civilian speed limits in her efforts to get to the labs in time to do some good.

The land shuddered as the being's lackeys, it's golems, hit ground and began their assault, attacking in ways that the local populace were unaccustomed to, and that left her shuddering as she recalled half-remembered dreams from a past life, or some such. Endbringers, they'd called them then. Behemoth, Leviathan, Simurgh.

We were ready. This time, millions would not die.

Instead, Billions would when Scion decided we were not worth the time. Him or his wife, the so-called Eve, levitating nearby. But that would happen when it happened. If they could stop the Endbringers, then as proof-of-concept, their weapons and strategies would be beyond useful. This knowledge _needed_ to be passed on!

If only the targeting systems had been complete months ago, then this could have been avoided.

She looked down out of the window, resisting the urge to close her eyes to such devastation. So many dead, because they hadn't been able to work fast enough.

She looked forwards again, determined to at least kill one of the beasts before the day was done, if it was at all possible.

And to rub it in that rat bastard Finkerton's face that she had been right about them all along.

* * *

Taylor sat up and stretched. It has been some time since she'd been up for the sunrise, imprisoned as she had been, but her muscles at least weren't completely unaware of their repeated use in an effort to build them.

Then again, it had been some time since she'd last seen the sun at all. Nightmares rarely held anything for her anymore, the cruelties of reality making them a welcome escape, and the pain experienced long ago inuring her to the little bumps and bruises of daily life.

This world, it was a world of magic. Not unlike Journey to the West, of Chinese literature. Monsters, demons, dragons and more, all featured heavily, and very little in the way of technology.

Her dreams of Brockton Bay, no matter how clearly they depicted the place as a hellhole, were an escape from the cell she'd been sealed in some time back, months? Years? with no food, no water, and no sun. Clearly, the principles used for the local "magic", magical or otherwise, had a way of keeping her alive while still imprisoned. No way out, she'd checked some time back.

Another thing she'd noticed, was that she still held her sword. She picked up the elegant piece of metal, forged by a journeying Japanese smith and gifted to her for reasons unknown, and began katas taught to her by that same smith and a friend of his. It was not a traditional sword, in fact it was just the opposite. Much longer than a toy sword made for a young child, it hung from her hips to her feet when she held it there, and the blade was reversed. Instead of being sharp on the edge sweeping away from her when held normally, it was sharp on the edge facing her, not unlike the boomarang lookalikes used by Batman from Earth Aleph's DC comics. Rather a poor for traditional uses of killing.

Pretty darn good for a baton, though. Not extendable, but then you can't have everything, and this particular blade was much stronger and sharper than it looked, not unlike a Brute or perhaps a Tinker-blade. It even seemed to hold additional properties from time to time, and cut almost anything she actively tried to cut.

She was unsure why she was being so nostalgic for the world she remembered, however vaguely, when she'd lived in this world for all her life. Whatever she'd done and learned in a past life had no bearing on her situation.

Or did it? After all, learning can be applied anywhere, if you understand it correctly. The only question is if it can be utilized properly.

All she had to do right now, was wait for her punishment to be done. (yeah, stealing from a local man-turned-oni was not a good idea, in hindsight. She'd needed the food, but even trying had been stupid)

A crack reached her ears, and she stopped, straightened, and held her sword to the side, ready to slash to damage, and cut for a kill. This world's demons had not been kind to her there.

Crack!

There! the wall was no longer uniformly granite grey. There was now a black crack running through it, widening as she watched. She grabbed up what few worldly possessions she owned and hefted them to her back. If the prison was not broken and this was only temporary, then she might only get this one chance.

As it was though, this was not necessary. The rock fell away, and she was blinded by the sun in her face, dust swirling through its light as she held down the urge to cough.

When the air had cleared, what she saw struck her dumb, and she nearly dropped her sword as low as her jaw.

There was a dragon, darkened by blacker magics and lying dead in front of her, its body as rent as her former jail, and now that she looked, the rest of the mountainside. Dragons were majestic creatures, wise and powerful and nearly impossible to defeat to boot. Who could have managed such a feat, and was that what released her from her prison?

"So, you are the young maiden that was trapped in here." A melodious male voice resonated across the valley. A suave one. A powerful one. A rather familiar one.

Taylor shook herself and looked, eyes narrowing when she saw the voice's owner. "Oh, it's _you_." Because of course it would be the god who wanted in her pants.

* * *

Taylor snapped her eyes open in fear, registering a cautious touch to her arm and a concerned, freckled face framed by curly brown hair and a kind expression.

"Excuse me, I'm Panacea. Do I have your permission to heal you?"


	2. Brightness

"Hello, my name is, who? My name is, wha? My name is,-"

.

Taylor happily skipped along the road. School was nothing these days. Just a chore to sit around while everyone else repeated what they learned last week, while she was still several chapters ahead in every class.

Except for Language Arts and Art. One had books that she'd read several times but you could only know what assignments to do when the assignment was given, and the other was a case-by-case basis. Even there, she was mostly a straight-A student, having made the Dean's List once again.

Life was good.

A man was approaching her, military bearing, military dress. Accompanying him was a woman, stereotypical lab coat and multiple pens assemblage.

So, a recruitment drive. Wonder what the pitch will be? Certainly couldn't be the worst attempt the military had ever made to get her brains on a table, ready to talk weapons.

Well, it wouldn't hurt to at least hear them out, anyways.

So she didn't rabbit, she just let them approach.

The woman took the initiative when she "noticed" little ol' her, and came forwards with a kindly smile. Kudos to her, that's a good start. Let the eggheads talk, and let the generals scheme in the background.

"Hello there, Taylor Annette, right?" She asked, her confidently warm smile making her glasses-wearing blue eyes sparkle. Those warm, kissable lips-

NO! BAD TAYLOR! No kissy face until you know she's not gonna stab you in the back. Focus on the recruitment drive. "Yes I am indeed." She smiled back, noticing how the dress shirt the woman was wearing was of a nice but cheap material, showing taste, and the red pleasantly offset a small golden pendant, showing signs of care, and brought attention to cl- NO! BAD TAYLOR~!

Well, at least if they're manipulating her, they did their research.

"Is there a problem with the main office?" She said instead, bringing her attention back to the woman's pleasant face and sensible glasses. Not ostentatious or overly large, simply sitting there with what appeared to be flame sitting on one hinge. Neatly done decoration.

"No, not at all." The woman said simply. "In fact, my boss has asked me to try and recruit you for a think tank initiative-"

"Hmm, not interested." Taylor said, as she began to walk away.

"You've been approached by the military, I take it?" The woman said in a commiserating tone.

Taylor gave her a sardonic smile as she continued on her way, the woman falling in step. "Yeah, the jarheads aren't exactly the brightest bunch, are they?"

The woman snorted and shook her head, smile continuing along with them. "No they are not." A few steps in silence. "Useful though. Certainly enough if some idiot radical decides they want you for a hostage or to build bombs for them."

Why does this sound familiar? OH! Like Tinkers on Earth Bet. Some apparently get conscripted like that. Wonder why she's bringing it up?

"The papers you've published haven't exactly gone unnoticed among the normals, you know." She said, concerned. "If someone in the government doesn't snap you up and give you protection, who's to say what group will force you to work for them. The Al-Jazeari? Humans First? Eco-Warriors like The Tree In Red?"

That last group is actually Allin-Coawallu, but the translation wasn't _too_ inaccurate, though one might say the inflection actually says "Tree covered in Blood". So, that's her angle, huh? "And who's to say that I'll get snapped up? And who's to say that I actually want to be, or that I'll actually be protected by the government if I work with them? I've been screwed over by them before, after all." Yeah, Tinker-tech is sometimes useful here. For all that we were in some futuristic future (heh), a lot of the basic amenities given to Earth Bet weren't here on Earth... what would this be? Tav? Gimmel? Omega?

The government got some of that pro-bono. They also abused the hell out of it, and caused one very particular explosion, causing massive nation-wide blackouts, which caused her to cut ties in that nomme de guerre after a particularly _scathing_ email, and promptly revealing all the dirty laundry of everyone involved in that scandal, which neatly helped them with their coverup of the cause of the explosion. After all, prime time television still had a love of scandal in every way, and the common people still get distracted by it. Also got most of them a time-out in prison, federal or military.

"Well, we may assist the government from time to time, but we have also been burned a time or two. We understand that, and simply wish to experiment scientifically in peace, for the betterment of all."

Taylor gave her a raised eyebrow. "You wanna sell me that line, you gotta practice it more." Well, her answer wasn't exactly promising, but it certainly wasn't a dealbreaker, yet.

"You've heard of the Canry Effect?"

Eyebrows went up. "Who hasn't? Dimensional physics rerouted to allow for flight? The very thing that causes our hovercars to work against all odds like bumblebees every single day?" The very same thing I published under a psuedonym after studying what memories I had of Parahuman flight under the current-day genius intellect? Come on lady, up your game or get to the point.

There was a cheeky, but effervescent smile on the woman's face now, a little lost in her accomplishments. "Well, I've been studying some interesting side-effects of the Canry Effect, under a heading a colleague of mine has labeled 'the Alexandria particle'. Its properties are amazing, nearly indestructible and has provided us with many advancements, many of which are currently private but will help out the common man tremendously once we got there."

Ah. Taylor began to smile, a little smug with knowing what was coming, beginning to walk away for effect. "Well, I'm sure that Doctor Hebert will have no trouble accepting your offer of help in-person, and that Toybox will be greatly better for it."

The woman stopped in shock as Taylor continued on, incredibly self-satisfied.

"How did you know that name? Nobody knows those names."

Taylor turned around, smile still in full force. "Well, you should've done a little more research, Dr Maleth. After all, my maiden name, before I legally changed it, was Hebert. I know full well what kind of work you do." She held a stern look for a moment, then let the grin erase it as she extended a hand. "I would be honored to work with you."

Yeah, stories of day-to-day life in the think tank Elseon were plentiful, working with Dr Elizabeth Maleth over the internet. She knew that it would be comfortable there, and well-guarded. She also knew that it was cozy, like a home, a community. They work together for the happiness of all, not for war.

That, and the look on Lizzy's face was absolutely priceless. Things of the future were soon to be _grand_.

* * *

"OW!" Face in a rictus of pain and fear, body tensed and squirming, legs itching to leave, she was in hell.

"Oh, stop being such a big baby."

"Well it frickin hurts!" She yelled back. Seriously, this was torture.

"Look, you asked for this. You're the one who wanted a tattoo on your shoulderblade, but if you can't handle it, then I can always charge extra to finish it later."

"No, I'll be good." She hurried out through gritted teeth.

"Good girl." After that patronizing little sentence, there was absolutely no sounds beyond the woman behind her dipping needles into ink, and the sound of those damn needles being poked under her skin. And her whimpers. "Though, in all honesty, how you can survive getting slashed in the gut without complaint but whine and plead about tiny needles I don't think I'll ever understand."

"Adrenaline covers a lot of things." Teylor gasped out. "But I have to stay STILL!" She froze as she let the pain flow through her after a particularly painful poke, "and let you maim me at my request here."

"Alright." The other woman said bemusedly. A few agonizing minutes later, the pain stopped coming in and just ached for a moment. "Okay, all done."

Teylor chuckled weakly. "And the prognosis doc?"

"Looks good." A light tinkle of thin bone on glass filled the air before the other woman clapped the dust off her hands. "Still don't know why you wanted that thing."

"Well, I've always wanted a tattoo, why not get it from an artist I trust?" She said easily, wincing as she aggravated the wounded flesh to pull her robe-thing back on. Kimono! That's the word.

"But why did you have to get _that_?" Ameylin asked with a shudder as she followed her friend out of their little dark corner, choosing not to comment on the fact that it wasn't her first tattoo. "That thing is freaky."

Teylor raised an eyebrow at the other woman. "Freaky? Compared to those dragons up on Mount Kyboshu, this thing is downright tame." Not that she was going to think about it just ye- _at all_. While the dragons of Mount Kyboshu might be- no, not _thinking about it_. " _Besides_ , aren't you excited for the festival coming to town?"

"Actually, I'd been planning on staying inside and trying to read up on my correspondences." The Healer responded, trying to not make eye contact. The fact that her eyes were covered in silk strips and pointed away from Teylor did not help her when you considered she could see in full 360 degree view at all times.

"Oh, come on! It's a big city! And plenty of the townsfolk here have a few coin or they're country folk who know how to take care of themselves. They can survive for a week or two without you." Teylor wheedled. "Besides, you work so much in that dingy little clinic here that you could very well work yourself to death."

For just a few moments, Ameylin looked very troubled.

And then Teylor pulled out the deathblow. "I'll get you the pizza stuff, okanomiyaki."

She sighed. "Fine... Just let me get the clinic closed up."

Just barely keeping herself from jumping for joy at the victory, Teylor celebrated internally as she helped put away the few things that needed to be hidden before heading out the door. Blinking at the light (it was rather dark in there, for no apparent reason) she shook her head and smiled as they left the hot and humid comfort of Ameylin's clinic for the ruckus of the middling-sized town they'd set up shop in for a time getting ready for a local festival.

It was actually a joy to see how the smiles on the people lit up the town as they prepared. Every year around the beginning of the year, the people of Kazayama prepared a festival in honor of a wind god said to drive away the evil dragons into their current roost of Mount Kyboshu. Matter of fact, the town itself was actually named after their festival. There were a lot of wind chimes and the like strewn about in various stages of either being made or being hung around the town.

Another joy suddenly butted her in the back, bringing a grin to her face as she turned to pet the large wolf who had wandered up to her. When the blue-grey creature she'd been told was a Dire Wolf of some sort had come back several times after that, never staying but never leaving her alone for long periods either, she'd decided he was hers and named him.

She'd named it Bob Seager.

Bob Seager was now looking piteously at the healer, complete with distraught whining. This was a proven tactic.

After they'd gone off and bought a few treats for themselves (and Bob) from some of the vendors who'd come for the festival, a familiar voice piped up. "Are you two done being sickeningly sweet now?"

They looked back and saw an oddity, in the context of the crowd anyways. Short, freckle-faced strawberry blonde on a tanned face filled with freckles, eyes a deep green like the grasslands around the town, and a smile as vulpine as the ears and namesake of the little trickster in front of them.

Teylor smiled back. "Well, I think we can include you in our lives for a time." She said teasingly, trying to stay aware of the customs the young one had grown with. "Wanna piggyback ride Kit?"

The little kitsune's smile brightened up the day immensely before she scampered up her back. She pointed a finger forwards and commanded "Mush!", just like Teylor had a few times in the past. It made her smile.

"As you command, little one." Teylor said.

It was good to be with her friends, few though they are, and the day was only beginning. The future, she decided, was bright.

* * *

For a moment, Taylor was speechless. Then she shook herself. "Uh, yeah. Of course you do. You're the healer." Oh, nicely done Taylor. Very smooth.

A weight seemed to lift from Panacea's shoulders and she sighed. "That's good, I'd have a fit if I couldn't heal you after saving your life for a few hours."

Taylor's brow furrowed. "A few hours? I thought your healing ability was seemingly near-instantaneous."

"It is, especially with recent wounds, but what you were going through-" She cut herself off with a shiver. "It was like looking at Grey Boy's victims, except every single new injury was just that, _new_."

Grey Boy's victims, that was a subject Taylor knew a little something on. They were ordinary people that the _former_ member of the Slaughterhouse 9 had tortured and set to live through that same torture and die multiple times every minute of every day without rest. It was not a fitting death for so many innocents.

The fact that it was used to compare to herself was a little worrying. Who had she upset to get that sort of response?

"Well, I'm glad you were on hand to heal it, even if it caused you trouble." Taylor said sincerely.

Panacea smiled. "Not a problem." There was a moment of contemplative silence.

Then Taylor spoke up, curious. "What kind of injuries did I sustain?" Well, not the best way to put it, but better than "suffer". She'd probably been unconscious for most of it since she didn't remember almost any of it.

Panacea startled for a second, then considered her for a moment. "Well, a large number of different things, including being split open from shoulder to hip more than once, a few smaller straight wounds not unlike knife damage, and some odd damage to your side not unlike a human mouth biting down deeply, like an insane Brute or Crawler of the Slaughterhouse Nine, as well as what looked like the damage path after shrapnel from a fragmentation grenade."

Taylor blinked. "Wow. That's, that's rough. Glad I was out for that." And she knew. She remembered looking up that sort of thing up online, on an Earth with no Parahumans for a history project, she remembered seeing the devastation such a weapon could do when in close quarters, after an Al-Jazeari attack designed to bring her into their ever-so-humble "care".

She also remembered what it looked like after a man was split open in front of her, stem to stern by a long sword, katana-styled. She remembered having actually split a man open herself to save a young child, after the man had murdered the child's family in front of her.

She remembered the pain of a sword bisecting her heart, shortly before blacking out to the sweet embrace of death. She didn't remember why that fight came about, just how it ended.

But then, why would she remember the end, but not the more important parts? Perhaps the information was not included in the transfer or something?

She shook her head. Off point. She gave Panacea her best smile (not exactly much at the moment, between the disturbing images and the half-remembered pain, but it was a smile) and repeated herself. "Thank you for your help. If you ever have something you need, I'll do my best to manage it."

Panacea just waved it off. "Like I said, it was no real trouble for me. Just a little exhausting, that's all." And how sad was it that it took Taylor _that long_ to notice how tired the healer looked. Like a soldier without shore leave.

"Then you should go home and rest, or do something else you find soothing." She said. Panacea looked concerned and was about to refute her words but Taylor shook her head. "No, workaholics tend to make themselves useless by overworking themselves. Besides, the hospital can survive without you for sixteen hours. They'll be fine." For some reason, the words felt, well-tread, like this was an old argument with the well-known hero, even though this was the very first time the two girls had met face to face.

After a moment of staredown, the freckle-faced young woman nodded and conceded the point. "Alright. I'll just check on a few more trauma patients and then go home."

Taylor smiled brilliantly at her. "Good. Just make sure that three don't turn into thirty, alright?" With some effort and without waiting for Panacea's response, Taylor sat up. She looked over to the other brunette and asked, "Am I good to go, or should I stay?"

Panacea gave her an odd, measuring look. "Well, Sarah wanted to keep you here for observation another day or two, just in case of relapse or a second try at parahuman attack."

Taylor considered this and nodded. "Okay, that's sensible, I suppose. Does that mean I won't be able to go out and get a snack?"

"No, not at all. In fact, getting some food for you would probably be a good idea." Panacea smiled. "Here, lemme help you up. There's a vending machine not far from here, I'll get you something."

Taylor smiled back and accepted the help with grace. "Many thanks."

"Of course."

Well, it may not be the grandest of beginnings, but she felt like she'd had worse. And honestly?

If she could just get the little freckle-face to smile more often, then the future would be bright indeed.


	3. This time I won't forget

Truthfully, she never thought she'd end up here.

Here, being Mount Kyboshu.

The place where the greatest of dragons seal away the most powerful criminals, and all the worst monsters of the world, including a few of their own.

She'd fallen down a hole, pushed down by a human, and woken up here. A person who has never done anything wrong in a den full of monsters.

The hardest part of being here, she'd decided a year ago (was it a year? or two? or five?), was that there was very little to do here but socialize (or try to) and kill time.

Sometimes literally. The other inmates, well no one would be missing them, and they're all monsters anyways, so...

She sighed. Then she looked down at the small length of steel that she'd sequestered in her little patch of rock she'd claimed as her own. With a fluid and well-practiced motion, she picked it up, unsheathed it, and began a series of practiced strikes against air.

A smith by the name of Glick had been locked up here, perhaps wrongly, and he'd traded his services to everyone in exchange for protection. Nobody touched him, and a few of her friends -well, tolerable people here- said that _everyone_ respected him. Whether for his skills in forging a blade, or his skill in wielding one, he was one of the greatest they'd ever seen.

And given that the local tech level was medieval, and the magic-suppressors built into the mountain force everyone to base-human levels and nothing more, that was truly a reason to respect him. Nobody was better at killing others than anybody else here, except by skill or inventiveness.

He had told her that he'd made her a blade, that first day she'd been here. She hadn't even been here twenty-four hours, and he'd already made her a blade. Questions had gone through her mind then, most of which were never answered: "Why would you make a blade for someone you've never met?", "Why are you giving me a blade obviously meant for a royal?!" -interesting side-note, it wasn't the first blade he actually gave me-, "Why are you locked away here?", "What would I even do with a blade? I've never fought anything more troublesome than my laundry!", among others.

Turns out, for that last one? It was practice.

He taught her so many things about how to aim her blade at her enemies, and how to care for it, which became especially useful not even a day later, when she'd been practicing under his watchful eye and someone had intruded, with the intent of "Meeting the new flesh". Glick had done nothing but watch her fumbles as she first ran, then sliced out in a panic at her would-be rapist. Said rapist then proceeded to bleed out in front of her.

He'd then told her what she did wrong, what she should've done instead, and then made her clean his 'smithy' before making her clean the blade under his watchful eye. He was that kind of teacher. He was also the kind of teacher to give you the first blade you use, if he thinks it suits your soul. Of course, the bastard didn't even bother _telling_ me that...

She had kind of taken his instruction to heart since then, and as a thing to do, sword practice wasn't a bad thing. Particularly when it had been the only reason why she was even alive today, several dozen times over. he'd even supervised her as she'd made a few blades of her own!

...not sure where he got the metal for such things, but metalcrafting was such an interesting profession, one she'd made use of to pass the time herself.

However, she'd always known, from a feeling in the pit of her spine and stomach that had steadily grown stronger as the days went by, that the almost idyllic day-to-day occasionally marred with lethal violence would not last forever. That something was coming. Very soon.

Without warning, it came this morning. Darkness, a feeling like the very ground beneath her feet was trying to kill them all or shake itself apart, and then silence.

Several minutes, what could have been an hour or just seconds. Time passed, and it was incredibly confusing for her. Many things happened, seemingly all at once, a confusing chaos that she had no chance to make sense of beyond the fact that she was suddenly alone, and it was much darker than it had ever been in the mountain.

She took a breath, and coughed at the dust in the air, before stumbling away to lean against a tree. She flinched and cried out when the light hit her eye, but when she had adjusted, her breath caught and she was struck dumb for several moments.

It was a sunrise. How long had it been since she'd seen the sun, even so simply as beating down at high noon? How long since she'd had the chance to see the sky filled with reds, yellows, oranges and pinks cascading away like a fire being chased by the ocean?

It was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen, and the sent of clean air, unspoilt by blacker magics, hexes and imprisonment, recycled or otherwise, filled her lungs with one of the most glorious feelings she'd ever experienced.

Unfiltered freedom. A feeling of truly being _ALIVE._

* * *

Truthfully, she never thought she'd end up here.

Trapped in a cave on the opposite side of the world from her friends, probably presumed dead.

She sighed. Then again, despite so many advances in science attributed to her public name that defied many sources of logical sense, a number of which she no longer knew how she got the data for, it would've been surprising to _not_ become famous in some way.

And now. because of this, she was stuck in a cave somewhere in the ass-end of the world, making weapons for terrorists while everyone else is wasting resources trying to find her when they _should_ be trying to figure out what those creatures, those Kaiju they'd found, were made of and how to kill them. A deep knowledge in the back of her very soul told her they were nothing but death machines, and still alive despite the lack of a heartbeat or other vitals, and the sooner they could figure out how they die, the sooner millions would be safe.

She sighed again before getting back to her little welding project.

She'd been lucky, after the first month, they hadn't bothered looking in the spare-parts box, though they continued having the rest of her quarters searched for weapons she hadn't turned over.

But they did allow her non-weapon hobbies, so long as they didn't distract her from manufacturing more weapons for them.

...was this what it was like to be a kidnapped Tinker on Earth Bet? A kidnapped or drugged-into-submission Thinker?

Her hands stilled. That thought, it was... horrifying. That someone else - _not her_ \- would suffer through such a thing.

She swallowed. Glancing down at what was on her workbench. Normally, it would hold many tools of scientific research. Normally, it would hold great promise for the day(s) ahead.

Normally, it wasn't a crude metal table next to an equally crudely carved out cave wall held by criminals and terrorists. Normally, it wasn't holding her proposed salvation, a crude shiv she'd sharpened immensely, partly from scrap leftover after an experiment went a little screwy, equally crude spot-welded armor that probably couldn't take much more than a love tap to the center mass, and a crudely-made laser weapon. Which was likely to explode after the first two or three activations.

Well, wouldn't be the worst scientific sin she'd committed since ending up here, in this dank and dirty cave.

Besides, she only needed it to work once.

She picked up the shiv and put it next to its brothers, all sharp enough to cut human flesh with ease. She picked up the armor she'd made and donned it, her ribcage and head protected by metal like her shins and thighs, tough leather around hands, stomach and knees with pockets for those now-sheathed shivs. She picked up the laser weapon and pointed it at the door. She breathed in, she breathed out.

There was a knock at the door. They always knocked twice before it opened.

She fired.

The crude slab of iron flew off its hinges, the scream of metal being ripped from its sleeve covering the scream of dying humans.

They're watching, so gotta keep going, and fast. She rushed out of her little cell, throwing caution to the wind as she allowed her weapon to fall to her side thanks to a strap.

She ran through the complex in her mind, what she'd been through while her head had been kept under a bag those few times they'd needed her somewhere besides her lab, while she began her dash.

Three meters forwards, thirty degree turn to the left, eight meters. one shiv left the holster and speared a man's neck before he could do anything more than notice her, but she did not retrieve it. She did not deviate from sixty-degree turn to the right and diagonal to the forwards right at a forty-five degree angle because this room had so many entrances. And so did the few rooms after that that she'd been able to see. This cave system -seven degrees turn to the left and straight forwards twelve meters- was a labyrinth, and if she let herself be distracted beyond throwing a shiv to her left to stop the man with the radio, then tossing another almost blindly at his partner before dashing a hard left around the corner, then she'd be utterly lost.

There was a hairpin turn coming up, and no way to tell if someone would be around it, so she pulled a pair of shivs from their holsters. Turns out, that was a good thing, considering that there were five men with guns.

She lunged and swiped at the first man, cutting his throat deeply enough to leave a chasm, where the blood spilled out like Kool-Aid coming out of a wide hose. Ignoring the blood coming all over her for a moment, she ducked in towards the second one, and stabbed him in the gut, where the blade practically pulled itself out of her hand, slick with blood as it was. She turned to the next but unfortunately, the other three were starting to get their wits about them and start pointing their guns. She threw her second shiv -from her left hand, so while not covered in blood, her aim was terrible, and instead of hitting the guy in the middle in the throat or eye or something _useful_ , the knife strayed to the guy on the left and nicked his side with a slight sound of metal on metal. She quickly stood and tried putting the still-bleeding terrorist between her and them, just as the other were pulling their triggers, sending bullets into him, rather than her. (no way could her armor survive that kind of barrage)

When she saw blood spraying from one of his wounds right in front of her eyes, she dropped the soon-to-be dead man and ran back around the hairpin turn, hopefully she'd get enough time before they started chas-

 **Boom!**

She crashed to the floor in a painful huff, twitchy from adrenaline as she tried to figure out what that was and where it came from. Explosions of any sort are a bad thing, especially when you know that, from a rough guesstimate, there was a cache of probably-nuclear missiles about twenty or thirty feet away.

After a few seconds, she scrambled upright and put some more distance between her and the corner before pulling around her laser. At least she'd get one or maybe two before they got her.

A few seconds after that, she hesitantly went back around the corner, given that they hadn't given chase yet.

What met her was a charnelhouse destruction scene, and the remains would stay with her, in all her nightmares, for years to come.

But, at least she knew why they hadn't chased after her now.

...no helping it. Her shoes would have to be burned. The route out of the caves required this hallway, and there was nowhere blood, bone, or other viscera _wasn't_ for several feet.

And so she walked, and tried to distract herself from the squishes by trying to figure out why this had happened. It didn't really work, given that she didn't know a whole lot about explosives, and the, it- it was just _there_. but she figured it might have been a fragmentation grenade of some sort. She hadn't created anything like that, so it could've been some sort of energy cell violently discharging, but if it was, it wasn't electrical, or there'd be bodies, not just paste.

She'd gotten really lucky to be ambushed _there_ , as she'd lost count of where she was, but the entire section was just a long narrow hallway, and shortly after that was a wide entry-way filled with equipment crates and _daylight_.

Unfortunately, at was also filled with terrorists, and she had not counted on needing _quite_ that many shivs. these caves were mostly sparsely populated. She'd thought she could get out without trouble. She ducked down behind a nearby crate, thankful that they hadn't seen her yet, though why they wouldn't have when a probably- _grenade_ had gone off a short ways away from them _in a tunnel system_ made no sense.

...she blinked. 'Okay, either you're injured and bleeding out and this is just blood loss talking, or they drugged something you ate or drank recently, because that sentence made less sense than the terrorists not noticing you.'

So, maybe it wouldn't be the amazing "Great Escape" ending she'd wanted, but at least they wouldn't have her weapons much longer. She'd set a timer in the last bomb she'd made for them, set to blow the explosives, and all others around it, in two days. Since then it has been, maybe forty-six hours.

...since you're feeling all that optimistic and "no fear", why not take a peek and try to figure out how you're getting out of here?

...that, is a lot of bad guys with guns. A part of her wants to say "you've seen worse", all flippant, which makes another part of her want to say "Oh yeah? _When?_ ", because Dr. Taylor Hebert has never been behind enemy lines like this.

There is no clear leader, they're just standing there.

Except, there is a barrel. A big, red barrel, right in the middle of their group.

...fuckit. It works in movies and games, why not try it here? At least it'll make death a whole lot quicker if it fails.

With a quick motion, she stood, aimed, and just as the idiots at the back are turning around to see what's up with her, she fires the laser at the barrel.

Right about then, she is covered in explosive fire from two directions. Later, all she can figure is that either she'd been off by two hours, or someone had messed with the timer on the self-destruct she'd made for her escape to keep other terrorists from having her advanced technology. She also figured, later, that there was no possible way for her to have survived that kind of frying from large explosions in two directions. Especially since the barrel must've been filled with some sort of liquid or gel explosive that was about as stable as nitroglycerine or something to burst like that.

Or something. Fuck you, she's not a chemist. Though, as someone who understood force, the blast behind her was a lot bigger than the one she was being thrown into. While there was a possibility of being crushed (or so she figured with some finger-base counting), she was sent flying in exactly the right direction she needed to go.

At the time, she was just amazed to be conscious. Also, she was in pain, with some sort of char filling her nose.

After some indeterminate time, she managed to struggle past the bodies towards the daylight, which was blinding, now that she was close and-

Yes, she thought to herself faintly. That really is sunlight, next to a desert.

Blood on her hands, but not on her soul. A number of terrorists dead, and after several months she finally _finally_ could find her way home. She took in a deep breath, held and let go. It may be caked with blood and gore, unfiltered exhaust and unburnt complex carbons (so probably China-area), and so many other filthy things, but it was the sweetest thing she'd smelt in her life.

Broken and hurt by the experience, but she was _free_ now. Free to run, free to dance, free to do whatever she wanted, what research she felt was needed.

She stepped forwards, on to freedom.

To LIFE.

* * *

Truthfully, she wasn't sure why, but she never thought she'd end up back here.

Here, being high school. Specifically, Winslow.

It was a boring day, almost two weeks after whatever it was that had caused her to look like a Grey Boy Victim. One week since she'd restarted school. One week of abuse that was already getting incredibly stale after noticing _really noticing_ that the faculty did nothing, barely even tried. On one hand, she understood because it was a breeding ground for gang recruitment and future terrorists to really shine. On the other hand... They were supposed to enforce the rules. Not look the other way when the only group that fit none of the requirements of the various gangs of the Bay (when together, at any rate, and Emma in specific) outside of the Merchants, and they had none of the signs of drug use or abuse, forced or otherwise.

She looked down at the bedraggled green stuff which might be Easter "grass" pretending to be a salad next to a slop that Spam would be embarrassed to be seen with, and scoffed at her tray of "food". Was there ever any point in coming back to Winslow?

...perhaps not. Heck, at this point, it was probably just habit and an effort to not trouble dad. Time when she could've been recompiling her scientific notes or medical achievements, working on her sword skills again, looking over PHO for any scrap of useful information that could be connected to the troubles she'd seen on that Earth without parahumans. Or just sleeping and reconnecting with her dad! She was a ninety-year-old woman by this point, if you count all her years more-or-less together, she deserved a chance with her father, _goshdarnit_!

Another thing she wasn't expecting?

Holding back from shivving a redhead in the middle of an open cafeteria because she was suddenly covered in Mountaine Dewe.

But she held in that rage, because she was better than that. Better than this creature that had stolen her friend. She turned away and began to walk to the entry door.

"COWARD!"

She froze at the unexpected insult. She turned and thundered on back to Emma, leaving the other girl scrambling at the sudden fury on Taylor's face, the impressiveness her size lent her adding to the image. Somebody tried to get in the way, but she ignored them, plowing on through until Emma was trembling against the wall and Taylor was less than six inches away. It would be so easy to just punch, right now. So _easy_ , to turn Emma Barnes' face into pulp.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Taylor reached out

and pulled the redhead into a fierce hug. It had been too long since their last hug, _far_ too long, and obviously neither of them knew how to deal with that. "There's a lot of things in this world I wish I could change, whatever happened a year ago during the summer being a major one. I wish I could have my friend back." She breathed into Emma's ear, trying to hold back the sudden onrush of tears. "I wish that we didn't have to deal with Endbringers. I wish that you hadn't chosen the person who wasn't stable enough to be psychologically strong over me. I wish that we could be happy together, even have foster children together, if you wanted." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "But I can't. I can't change the past, only live with it into the future." She paused as she pulled back a little, waiting for Emma to be coherent enough to hear her. "I'm leaving Winslow. If you don't want my presence in your life, then you'll never have to deal with it ever again." A pause, one second, two, then a slow release, pausing to look Emma in her shocked and tear-filled eyes before pulling away completely. She walked away, somberly noting how everybody seemed to be paying them direct attention without any noise between them, Sophia looking especially gobsmacked. A distant part of her noted with pride how she was not shrinking from the attention like Taylor Hebert of Earth Bet tended to do.

She walked over to Sophia and leaned in close and quiet. "Sophia, you're fucked up. But whatever it is that made her choose you over me is still hurting her, and neither of us wants that. So get her to a qualified psychologist, and get yourself to one while you're at it." She paused to give Sophia a studying look. "Besides, if your part-time bosses were to ever find out about this, you'd never live it down, now would you?" With that, and without waiting for a reaction to the revelation that I might know she was a member of the Wards (not hard, a little research online, a little time with genius intellect, _et voila_ ), Taylor Annette Hebert walked calmly to her bag, grabbed it, and left the building, pulling in a deep, crisp breath of frosty December air, ready to face the world.

Or at least, begin plans to kill an Endbringer.

Walking away from the school, she took another deep breath and began to sing.

"...now, I'm ALIVE, _AND THIS TIME I WON'T FORGET!_ "

* * *

This new world is somewhat interesting.

The smell was somewhat of an acquired taste, but the convenience of this place was startling, even six months later.

But he will not forget why he is here. Who he is to kill.

Taylor will pay for her insults, her betrayal.

He owes her that much.


End file.
